iPad 2 Completely Sold Out, Everywhere
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The iPad 2, released on Friday, apparently sold out of every store in the United States by Saturday. That's what Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster learned from a survey he did of retailers across the country this weekend, and what's being confirmed by Deutsche Bank analysts this morning. Munster estimates something between 400,000 and 500,000 iPad 2s were sold this weekend, as compared to 300,000 original iPads sold on the opening weekend last year. Other analysts put the initial sales at closer to a million.
Munster's team called a number of retailers such as Apple stores, Target, Best Buy, and found no stock of iPad 2 anywhere they checked. They also walked up and down lines in New York City and Minneapolis and interviewed 236 would-be buyers to profile who was buying the new tablet. In addition to large sales to existing iPad owners, they found about 70 percent of people in those lines were getting their first tablet. 47% of them got a 3G model, and 41% bought the 32 GB iPad 2, an increase from the 32% who had gotten the 32 GB first-generation iPad, and that 64 GB models also sold better than before. This may have been driven by availability: Fortune reports that many Apple stores ran out of 16 GB iPads first, and 32 GB models. "iPads are sold out across virtually all channels," said Munster, adding that his team was "unable to find any availability." Munster now believes that sales could exceed his earlier prediction of 5.5 million iPad 2s in this quarter.
DeutscheBank did its own survey this morning, and found exactly zero iPad 2s at any of the 50 Apple retail stores, 20 Best Buy and Wal-Mart stores as well as AT&T and Verizon stores they called. The financial research firm Wedbush Securities, meanwhile, estimates even higher total sales than Munster. "We would not be surprised to see Apple sell closer to 1 million iPad 2s in the opening weekend," said analyst Scott Sutherland.
Source: Fortune
